Robelle Consulting (888.762.3553) has started shipping its latest quarterly release of Qedit for Windows, Version 4.8, with column editing brought across from its 3000-based version of the product. The feature lets programmers define a rectangular selection with CTRL + mouse click and drag, then cut, copy, and paste the selection. They can also delete columns with an option to fill with blank spaces to preserve column alignment, insert text into a specific column, shift text left and right to another column, and search for a string in specific columns to perform corresponding replace operations. Qedit for Windows 4.8 also adds commands for converting tabs to spaces and vice versa.

The Windows version of the editor will step into new ground for Robelle with the upcoming release of Qedit Scripting Language (QSL). Robelle president David Greer said the feature gives QWIN a better set of object-oriented capabilities. “Through the typical Windows interface there’s a limit to how much control you can exercise over Qedit’s objects, by clicking and mousing,” he said. “We’ve really moved to a whole next plane by introducing a scripting language whose goal is to let you control Qedit for Windows’ objects.” Document objects on 3000s, 9000s, or NT servers are all the same to Qedit for Windows, so the QSL object capabilities can be applied to documents (like source code) that reside on HP 3000s, for example. Greer gave us a quick briefing on the QSL plans at HP Users ’99, talking about an example where five different projects which interact with each other “could have five different Windows open, and you can manipulate them any way you want; you can take this general purpose product and custom-build it for your environment.” That means that the intricacies of developing in an Amisys shop, for example, or a Smith-Gardner environment, can be tooled into the editor that programmers use at those sites. Robelle is already using the feature internally for its automated regression testing suites. Robelle was putting the product into early beta test this month, and hoped to go into full release in December.